musings of a bitter crone

writer.dreamer.moonchild.

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

Lovely Runner, Google Searches:

[morethanwonderful]

[academyofbrokenhearts]

Kunning life 2 in a nutshell

Xie Wei: conceal don't fe- Xie Wei: wait Xie Wei: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU LIKE ZHANG ZHE YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIKE HIM AT ALL THINK OF YAN LIN BUT ALSO YOU SHOULD NOT BE WITH YAN LIN EITHER Jiang Xuening: ... Jiang Xuening: okay I am going to peace out Xie Wei: NO WTF WHERE ARE YOU LEAVING IS SOMEONE BOTHERING YOU SHOULD I KILL THEM WHAT IF I KILL ZHANG ZHE THEN WHAT Jiang Xuening: what is going on Xie Wei: NO YOU KNOW WHAT I AM DONE YOU ARE MINE AND WE NEED TO MAKE OUT FOR THE REST OF OUR EXISTENCE Jiang Xuening: what Xie Wei: YOU DON'T WANT TO BE MINE HOW DARE YOU okay then I am yours forever and ever please step on me should I stab myself for you? let's get married

[storge]

ZHANG LINGHE as Xie Wei Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

[enjoljeacharlichele]

When SVSSS said "You are worthy of love no matter your circumstances and this love will save you".

When MDZS said "All this suffering and pain and desperation was worth it because it saved at least one person"

And when TGCF said "One act of kindness alone can save the entire world"

[lenateliier]

How would you describe tai sui to someone who wants to read?

Agh I am so terribly sorry for the late response!! I've been very busy lately ^^" however!!! I can now go on for 50+ hours on why you should read it wahaha

So you want to read Tai Sui 🤨 Bring several boxes of tissues then, you'll need them!! It's an absolutely phenomenal novel that I think everyone should at least try - it's just your classic fun little family friendly xianxia that definitely won't grab you by the throat and wring you dry of everything you've ever felt 😉

For the absolute basics, Tai Sui is 247 chapters + 7 extras long, and it's a steampunk xianxia + historical fantasy. What's even better is that it has a lovely coherent completed translation done by E.Danglers!! It does not have a character pairing but PLEASE do not let the fact that it isn't a danmei dissaude you from reading!!! Tai Sui is such a rich and beautifully written novel for so many different aspects it's just so!!! *clenches fist*

As you may expect from it being a work by Priest, it's a deconstruction/breakdown of the xianxia genre with astoundingly intricate world building, detailing just what effect cultivation really has on the environment and the people who live there. It feels so incredibly weighty in the sense that it's so lived in, so very tangible..... One of my favourite things about it is that it showcases so much of the tragedy of the average person; the result of cultivation being so prominent and exclusive of the general public, the class divides it creates....and it does so through characters that aren't even named, while still making it sting! There's a handful of scenes like this I can think of off the top of my head but I wouldn't want to spoil them wahaha, so here's a screenshot of my reading thread mentioning it!

Another thing it does that I adore about Tai Sui is how it toys with the concept of what makes a deity/god. Think TGCF, but where TGCF came the the conclusion that gods are just the same as humans and left it at that, Tai Sui dissects that even further from various angles. What makes a god? Why do they hold that much power? Do they owe anything to the people? Should they? What makes them legitimate? Why can't we question them? Or to quote a scene from chapter 128, “so which are higher, the gods in heaven, or the gods on earth?” It's so incredibly good when contrasted against the MC, Xi Ping, and his situation that you'll see progress in the novel!! I don't want to spoil too much wehehe.

Priest touches on and explores so many different concepts over the course of it too!! To name just a few (courtesy of @/iplepee who made a list of these on twitter) there's environmental injustice, labour exploitation, resource monopoly, phrenology, the power of language, the power of names!!!!..... WAH I cannot stress it enough how amazing this novel is.... It's so beautifully done.

The characters too are incredibly enjoyable....agh...AGH OUR MC ESPECIALLY oh he has a special place in my heart my xiaobao 😭😭 to name just a few of my favourites it would be Xi Ping, Zhou Ying, Zhi Xiu, Xi Yue, Wei Chengxiang, Yu Chang, Zhao Qindan, Lin Chi, Wen Fei.....wahhhh so many...but honestly there are so many great characters and all I can do is clutch my chest at them,,, the relations between them, their interactions, what they mean to each other, how those ties affect their actions — it's so amazing and compelling. I've hinted at it in the prior little paragraphs but more than anything Tai Sui can be considered a story of the people, really.

Xi Ping especially is such a wonderful character and I really do think that out of all the Priest mcs, he is perhaps the most tragic one — not that you would know it until you think about it for a while longer :') Xi Ping does this wonderful little trick of fooling you into thinking everything is fine and good and great. I think one of the things that Tai Sui fans debate over a lot is whether it would have been more painful to see Xi Ping cry, or whether the fact that we never do see him just. Give himself a moment to breathe and feel that is the most painful......He comes close to it in one particular chapter, and those who have read it know exactly which one I'm talking about 😚😚

If you have ever read any of Priest's novels before, then in classic Priest fashion she will tear you apart and glue you back together only to maul you even worse than before. And it's such a great experience!!! You're in tears and you sit there gratefully. When I say Tai Sui changed my brain chemistry on a fundamental level I mean it... I have never been the same person since. The Tai Sui fandom on twitter, best described, is just a bunch of sadomasochists 😭😭👍

I'll stop here because I really could go on forever, but if you need any further reason to start this novel, please just take a look at some of these (not spoilery, don't worry!!!!) posts from my reading thread;

PLEASE READ TAI SUI!!! PLEASE READ IT!!!!!!! WAHHHHH HA HAAAA this novel means so much to me!!!

[catasters]

[ruanbaijie]

baby xie lian HEAVEN OFFICIAL’S BLESSING 天官赐福 🦋 s2e3

[yesdramas]

@userdramas event 11: inspiration [insp] TILL THE END OF THE MOON 长月烬明 (2023)

[enjoljeacharlichele]

When SVSSS said "You are worthy of love no matter your circumstances and this love will save you".

When MDZS said "All this suffering and pain and desperation was worth it because it saved at least one person"

And when TGCF said "One act of kindness alone can save the entire world"

[evilvillainapologist]

Zhou Ying: "I refuse to believe that Shiyong is really gone. I will do everything to get him back. I will unleash the worst demon the world has ever seen back unto the earth and destroy heaven and earth if I must. He is the only person I ever cared about; I will not tolerate his demise." 

Xi Ping: "San-ge, I'm back." 

Zhou Ying: "Holy shit, has this guy always been this annoying? How do I get rid of him again?" 

[morethanwonderful]

Genuinely Zhou Ying from Tai Sui is one of the most insanity-inducing characters ever written, like

He's a prince. He's chronically ill. He eats almost nothing that isn't bland and medicinal. He hates his dad so much he wants to start a revolution to destroy him. He's born vaguely psychic and eventually becomes the closest thing his world has to omniscient. He starts his revolution by having two local politicians chopped into mincemeat, blended together, and poured out in the street. His favorite person in the world is his annoying little cousin that hides out at his house with him when he gets in trouble with his parents. He's probably a sociopath. He's murderous enough that all his servants and subordinates are scared of him. He has the same clothes made for himself every year. He founds and runs his universe's version of the CIA. He had his bones magically removed as a baby. He's a commentary on the way that psychotic and neurodivergent children are often villainized and mistreated by their caretakers. He has his bones un-removed over 20 years later. He's faking his chronic illness to cover up other, weirder chronic illness related to the bone removal and psychic thing. He loves his grandma. He purposely engineered his mother's miscarriage as a young child. He can turn himself into mist and break off chunks of his body while in mist form. He grew up with his consciousness halfway bound to a hell bubble full of demons. He has a personal assassin/assistant/general-purpose henchman that can turn into paper and ride around in his sleeve. He sometimes calls the henchman a cutesy nickname. He was partially raised by the living embodiment of emotional manipulation. He sometimes calls his annoying little cousin an even cutesier nickname. He tries to destroy the whole world in a fit of grief when he thinks his cousin's dead. He basically kills himself in order to plonk his soul into a magic mirror and see beyond the bounds of reality. He treats his own life and body as expendable assets because he was bred and raised to be a human sacrifice. He didn't speak for years as a child because the way he spoke scared his mother. His experience of the world is so alien and incomprehensible to others that a man with the power to play souls as music cannot understand his tune. He's a case study of the fact that sometimes you simply cannot save someone who doesn't want saving. He's thin and sickly from his illness but canonically beautiful. He has his father's eyes. He spoils his pet cat.

[idledee]

its been a while, some tai suis!

[sandushengshou]

mxtxnet's october event | day 31: wei wuxian

[paper-and-snow]

I did something bad...

hope karma won't bite me that hard

[trendingdrama]

ZO IN SUNG as KIM DOO SIK

EP 18 : MOVING 무빙 (2023) dir.Park In Jae

[dangermousie]

I truly loved that the reason Ziyu passed the first test was because of teamwork with YWS. Also, this was shot so beautifully!

I will never ever get tired of his gentleness to her and her startled, half-disbelieving pleasure in it.

Ziyu, for all his deeply unpleasant upbringing, is innately kind and that is something that you are born with - it cannot be cultivated or learned, you just either have it or you don't. For all their smarts, that is something the poison brothers utterly lack.